Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an integrated circuit, and more particularly, to a power measurement circuit, a baseboard management controller (BMC) having the same and load balancing requests based on server power consumption and least-connection scheduling.
Description of the Related Art
Load balancing is the process of distributing processing and communications activity evenly or in some cases unevenly (in scenarios where servers are not of equal computing power) across a computer network so that no single device is overwhelmed or handling 100% of the network or web traffic. Load balancing is especially important for networks where it's difficult to predict the number of requests that will be issued to a server. Busy Web sites typically employ two or more Web servers in a load balancing scheme. If one server starts to get swamped, requests are forwarded to another server with more capacity.
Load balancers generally use different scheduling algorithms to control network traffic. For example, (1) Round-robin: A round-robin algorithm distributes tasks equally to each server in circular order. (2) Fixed weighted: The weight of each server is preassigned and most of the requests are routed to the server with the highest priority. (3) Least-connection: A least-connection algorithm sends requests to servers, based on which server is currently serving the fewest connections. (4) Network Load-based: A load-based algorithm sends requests to servers, based on network traffic flow, such as in terms of bytes or packets.
Each scheduling algorithm has its own set of benefits and suitable scenarios. A service provider can select an optimal algorithm that best suits its purpose to give a smooth, reliable and fast service delivery to its clients. The invention provides a new scheduling algorithm for the load balancers.
On the other hand, a baseboard management controller (BMC) is a specialized service processor that monitors the physical state of a computer, network server or other hardware device using sensors and communicating with a system administrator through an independent connection. The BMC is part of the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) and is usually contained in the motherboard or main circuit board of a server to be monitored. However, a conventional BMC does not include any hard-wired circuit dedicated to monitoring power consumption of its server. A system administrator of a corporate network may be present at one location while the servers may be spread around the buildings or even anywhere of the internet. It is very difficult and costly for the system administrator to be physically present at each server side and check power consumption of each server. Accordingly, what is needed is a BMC to address the above-identified problems. The invention addresses such a need.